I Have A Kelp Tattoo.

Tools of the Trade

Shelf-love.

Fun Reading: Malazan!

This is the third book in a ten-book series.
Steven Erikson's Memories of Ice.
Erikson's heroic fantasy is real literature, invoking and breaking the stale cliches of the genre, enlivening character and plot with insight, wit, humor, and compassion, pulling and pushing his readers to the brink of expectation and trauma, again and again.

Very fine writing.





Whiskeyjack, man.  Really?

Le Carre's "A Perfect Spy" is a Perfect Novel

Le Carre's A Perfect Spy is, I hazard to claim, a perfect novel.  It carries the adult thesis that the crucial shapings of character are emotional rather than rational, and it dramatizes such a range of humanity, such a range of response, in its pages.  I recently reread this novel -- while traveling in Germany, Austria, and Swizterland, very appropriately -- that I heartily endorse and recommend, and for some the trappings of espionage will be a feature, but I hope for others it will only be a mere distraction.

Le Carre's novel is both an excellent spy novel and a classic work of literature precisely because Le Carre is such a good watcher of humanity and such a good reporter of humane responses.  It's a thriller too.

Here's a passage that matters:

As for Pym, he was gazing on the glories of the kingdom he had dreamed of so long.  The German muse had no particular draw for him, then or later, for all his loud enthusiasm.  If she had been Chinese or Polish or Indian, it would have made no earthly odds.  The point was, she supplied Pym with the means, for the first time, to regard himself intellectually as a gentleman.  And for that Pym was eternally grateful to her.

As a first generation college student, I connect with this passage.  Studying English Literature at UC Berkeley enabled me to regard myself, intellectually, as a gentleman.  And that mattered.

The Telling

The telling.

That's what I like best about anything: stories, essays, novels, plays, epics.  That's what I love.

How the makers create meaning sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase, word by word, and sometimes morpheme by morpheme.  There's a wonderfully erotic ee cummings poem about bodies that has the phrase "I like its hows" and I'd apply that to every story, every essay, ever offered up to its readers.

The hows.  The telling.

I only wish I'd figured out in grad school how to craft that focus into an appropriate project.

Some might find that a shallow approach to literature, but there's a world of interest in that surface interface between teller and told, between player and audience, between maker and you.  

If you want to dive deep, you have to start at the surface and return to the surface.  There's more there there than we are often taught to understand and appreciate.  (And, frankly, most misreadings arise from lack of attention to detail, to the foundation, to the surface interface I'm calling attention to, to the there.)

Luckily, teaching intro to literature and intro to non-fiction at a community college allows me to delve so much into the telling on a daily basis.

Restless Rereading

Much of my reading falls into the category of rereading, for I've been a serious reader for a long time.  I'm teaching Homer's Iliad this term and how many times, how many translations, have I read?  Many.  And yet I must reread to be there with my students, to know the text intimately, to be a reader.  And so I do; I reread.

When I am relaxing at home, I read, which often means rereading.  For I read as others listen to music.  Seriously.  And, so, I often reread restlessly, as I think of it.  I don't quite want to read the whole book, but I do want to live in the music of that book.  So, I read a chapter here in one book and a chapter there in another book and even glance into a third.  That's when rereading becomes restless.  Still good.

You can see such from the photo above: four books that offered different music, compelling music.  A heroic fantasy, a literary novel about deep swimming, a thriller with sailboats, and a crime novel with a compelling protagonist and a compelling antagonist and a compelling setting, the mountainous area of Montana.  Different tunes; different music.

All good; all appropriate; all wonderful.  I just wanted a bit of each.

What music am I listening to, reading from, now?

Moya Cannon: "Openings" & "Still Life"

OPENINGS

In my chest a rusted metal door
is creaking open,
the door of a decompression chamber
cranked up on barnacled chains.

The rush of air hurts and hurts
as larks fly
in and out,
in and out
between my bended ribs.

--Moya Cannon

STILL LIFE

Much though we love best
those intersections of time and space
where we are love's playthings,
a sweet anonymity of flesh --
life's blessed rhythm
loving itself through us,
two human bodies tuned
to the whirring stars --

this is almost nothing
without the small, quotidian gifts,
habitual caresses which hinder fears,
the grace of small services rendered --
two bowls of blueberries and yoghurt,
two cups of coffee,
two spoons,
laid out on a wooden table
in October sunlight.

--Moya Cannon

-- from Moya Cannon's Hands,

Carcanet Press Limited,

Manchester, UK, 2011

Pinnacle

I have taken so many shots of this pinnacle.  I really ought to check my archives and present a blogpost on the different moods, the different silent voices of this one hunk of stone.  I don't really explore.   I really enjoy coming back to the same few places again and again and again in different seasons, different weathers, different mindsets.  And, just as I love getting coffee at Moody's and a fish & chip dinner at Sea Pal Cove in the harbor, I love looking at this pinnacle from the deck of my kayak or, even better, from the water itself.

Homer's Iliad: Anti-Indoctrination

Reading Homer’s Iliad is anti-indoctrination.  Is Homer praising war and heroism or questioning their value?  Is Homer advocating for the gods or calling faith in Zeus and his family into question?  Is Achilles or Hector the true heroic model?  Both? Neither?

Aside from the urgent questioning, we are given urgent empathy as well.  The Trojans, the putative enemies, are not the Other, but they are brothers and mothers, fathers and sisters.  All are mortal, and wrath is understandable, but not entirely justifiable in action and effect.

Read Homer’s Iliad and be mortal in the best sense.

Captain, Helper

My good cat Captain loves to help me with the laundry.

What that means:  Our washer is not balanced properly, so until I adjust the machine, the washer flips out and becomes unbalanced and galumphs galumphs galumphs.  I tend to grab a book to read and just sit atop the washer (instead of dealing with the balance issues).  Captain, bless his soul, likes to help me and comes running when he hears the imbalanced washer struggling--and so we both sit atop the washer.

Yesterday while I was at work, the washer was in operation and Captain heard the imbalance and came running to the rescue, standing atop the heaving machine and gentling it with his weight, just a bit.

Comfort Reading Since 1982

Martha Grimes'
The Old Fox Deceiv'd.

Classic English mystery penned by American writer:
still counts, still delivers the goods.

Richard Jury, Melrose Plant, Wiggins--
A cast I find so much fun.

Dumas' The Three Musketeers (novel and films)

My favorite version--after reading Alexandre Dumas' classic novel The Three Musketeers--to watch: Richard Lester's version (scripted by the author of the Flashman novels!)--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_-LfUtHnEBY

But then you'll also need to watch Richard Lester's sequel (though part of the original French novel):
The Four Musketeers--

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMhwGUGNuxI

Catching ZZZZZs with the Captain

Feeling ill's upside.

Kelp Love

Captain: A Sequence

Captain, sleeping: arms and legs in the air.

A silly sequence of a lovable boy.

For JW.

Captain, Dancing

Captain and Lady

 Captain.

Lady.

 Settling in.

Captain and Lady settling in: blue-eyed siblings, about five or six years old, newly adopted.